I can't say that writing in the near dark is one of my favorite things to do, but once again, as every night at some point lately, the power is out. It's only been and hour and a half so far tonight. Last night it was out from 3:30 a.m. until 7:45 a.m. And add to last night's power cut, a jackhammer bing used down on the street about a half a block away. Though the jackhammer actually started up around 2 a.m.
I did manage some sleep, even though it was stiflingly hot and humid, but hubby couldn't sleep but a short light doze until the power came back on, and with it the a/c.
Apparently the guys jackhammering couldn't sleep either, as they were still at it until just before the power came back. Who schedules these people to work in the wee hours of the morning, disrupting people's sleep?
A few nights ago, the power went out right before I was going to start making our meal to break the fast. That was interesting and hubby was kind enough to help by holding the flashlight as needed. I'm so thankful we have a gas stove and not an electric one. Which brings me to 2 other things that I'm thankful for. The first is the hand crank flashlight that I brought with me when I moved to Egypt last year (which I'm using to see to write this). No batteries needed, it works solely by you cranking the handle. It has come in so handy lately. The second item is one I just purchased on my recent trip to the States, and that is an Asian hand fan - the kind that folds out into a half circle. When you have no power, hence no a/c, and the humidity gets up to about 85% every night, this is, aside from the flashlight, the most useful thing.
Quite frankly, I'm more than tired of the power outages. I'm not sure how much they are happening in other areas, and maybe we are only getting more of them as we live in such a densely populated area. I have to say I will be overjoyed when "winter" gets here and I can start to complain about how cold I am.
:::
Ramadan is going well and I think that I am even managing to gain some weight, which is good. We have been 4 or 5 times over to the in-laws to break our fast. The last time we went we took the Metro (train). There is no a/c on the train but there are small fans mounted on the ceilings (they don't really do much) and our departure stop is only 2 short stops away from where we board the train.
Today we took a taxi to get to the in-laws, but took a bus home. Not a full size Greyhound type of affair, but a smaller bus, kind of a mini bus I guess. Both the Metro and the bus are so cheap to take. They are also more crowded.
Our bus today wasn't quite sardine like yet (and yes, they do keep packing people in til the aisle ways are jam packed!!) but was getting close. It makes for a hot and sweaty ride, however I don't mind taking it to save a few pounds since without much traffic it's only a 10 minute or so ride.
One of the things my mother in law made the last time we were there is called kebbit shakir (that is how I'm spelling it, there are no real equivalents for spelling Arabic words in English - it's whatever you think works best to pronounce it correctly). Although she has made them before, this was the first time I had tried them. It's not easy to categorize them, but the best I can do is to call them an hors d'oeuvre (I just had to look up how to spell that, you don't want to know what my original guess was, lol), even though they seem to be eaten after the main meal (at least at the in-laws - I think they are originally an Indian dish). They have potato and onion in the dough, so on the one hand they are savory, but they are fried and then covered with powdered sugar, so they are also sweet. It was a strange combination, but they were very tasty nonetheless and I did want another but stopped at having one.
Here is a picture that I took of the dish.
And the time before when we visited, my mother in law had made what I call sugar balls. They are kind of like donut holes only not. They actually use the same dough as the above treats, only without potato and onion. And after they are fried they are dipped in a simply sugar syrup. Yum!
(the power is back on now and this will be continued later)
:::
I've been having the strangest dreams lately, very vivid. Not sure why but it seems to come and go in cycles like that. Or maybe just my ability to remember them comes in cycles. In any case, this morning when I woke up, I had been having a dream where I was saying, "mmmm.... brains". I honestly can't remember what was going on in that dream, but I'm sure it was not a case of me eating brains, as though many people consider them a delicacy, I am not one of those people. You will never catch me voluntarily eating brains of any sort! lol
::
We have a small star system up on one of our bedroom walls. I had bought one of those kits with the glow in the dark stars that you can put up on your ceiling/walls, and I bought it quite a few years ago but never used it, and it somehow made it into the pile of stuff that I brought with me when I moved here. After going through all of my stuff when I got back from my trip, I decided it was finally time to use them. Hubby was happy enough to let me go at it and see what I came up with. I'm fairly happy with the results, though they almost look slightly symmetrical. They aren't, but something about it looks too even somehow. I'll see if I can take a picture, though I'm not sure it will turn out all that well.
Every time I pass by the wall now, I do a double take though, as I'm not used to having anything on the walls other than paint. I'm sure I'll get used to it in time. And in the meantime, as well as being kind of neat to look at when we turn the lights out, it also provides some light when the power goes out. Not enough to do much by, but a faint glow at least.
:::
I did manage to get one Ramadan craft done, though it's something I made to put up at the in-laws. It was nothing too fancy or special. I cut out some star shapes in different colors of paper, and then used a glue stick around the edges and sprinkled glitter on them. After they were dry, I turned them over and did an outline of the stars just a little bit in from the edge with a dark colored pen. It actually turned out nicely.
Except for the glitter.
Please, if I ever talk about using glitter, please, I'm begging you, stop me! lol
I forgot how messy glitter is, how it gets EVERYWHERE, and how no matter how well you clean, you will find pieces of glitter in the years to come, in places you weren't anywhere near when you were using it.
It seems that the glitter I bought was extra fine, making it more of a pain in the patootie. I think if I was using a larger size it wouldn't have been so bad. Blargh that stuff drove me crazy!!! :D
Anyways, here's a picture of some of the stars. We (meaning hubby) hung them from the ceiling after I strung them through with some ribbon. I didn't get a clear picture of any of them since the fans/wind was blowing and they weren't standing still.
I'm hoping to get out and take some pictures of the Ramadan decorations that are up in the neighborhood, so hopefully I'll have some nice pictures to post of that soon.
:::
2 comments:
Your mom is with me helping me get set up so I can leave comments.
Hi mom and Sue! :D
Post a Comment